


Not Just Headlines

by viv_is_spooky



Series: The Marked [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Chance Meetings, Friendship, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viv_is_spooky/pseuds/viv_is_spooky
Summary: Sometime during 2009, Julia Montauk and Gerard Keay have a chance meeting at a coffee shop.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Julia Montauk
Series: The Marked [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696945
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	Not Just Headlines

**Author's Note:**

> I think Gerry and Julia could have been friends if they had met at a different time - that they would have understood each other. So I wrote this piece.

Julia Montauk is sitting in a café, trying to seem normal, attempting internally to lie to herself about how this new town she’s moved to might finally set her free from the twisted legacy of her last name. About halfway into her cup of black coffee, she feels eyes on her, and looks up to see a man about her age staring at her from across the room.

She’s been recognized already.

Now she can’t even have the comfort of lying to herself.

Jet-black hair that’s very clearly dyed, dressed head-to-toe in black, eyes radiating intensity...yeah, he looks like the type of person who would be into twisted true crime stories. Julia doesn’t like being stared at, resents being scrutinized, so she storms over to the stranger’s table, slams her hands down on it, and demands to know why he thinks it’s okay to intently watch someone he’s never met before. “Look, I KNOW I resemble my father. But I just want a BREAK and I just want to go SOMEWHERE without being chased by the past!”

He looks confused for a moment, and then haunted, and then his face shifts back to confusion. “Your father?” Then realization hits, and his voice is soft, almost...empathetic, as he says, “Julia. Julia Montauk.” He doesn’t say her father’s last name with as much vehemence as she’s used to. 

“Wait, if you didn’t realize who I am, why were you staring at me?”

“You’re...you’re marked by something,” he replies, raking a hand through his hair (the roots of which, Julia notices for the first time, are actually a light brown). “Being hunted by something - I can’t quite make it out, can’t tell you what it is, but it hovers around you.”

Julia looks down with a sigh. “Oh.” For some reason, she believes him. A part of her already knows that she is marked somehow, by the darkness that once tried to kill her and recently killed her father. “The dark. I’ve been afraid of it since...well, since...”

Trailing off, trying to decide if she should tell this strange new acquaintance the story of her childhood as it ACTUALLY happened, she looks up to study his face, and without the cloud of defensiveness that had previously obscured her vision, his eyes seem familiar - as if she’s seen them somewhere before.

It all comes back in a flash - those eyes, a picture of the man’s face on the front of the newspaper, the feeling she couldn’t quite shake that he wasn’t a killer (despite the reports which suggested otherwise). With a strange rush of empathy of her own, Julia reaches out and takes his hand. “Gerard Keay,” she says, wincing slightly at how he sighs with resignation at her recognition of him.

“I understand not wanting to be seen,” he mutters.

Julia decides then that she will tell him everything, speaking in a low voice so as not to attract anyone else’s attention, and then Gerard tells her his story as well. 

There is so much overwhelming relief in talking to someone who believes her, and she can tell from Gerard’s expression that he is having the same realization as words spill from his mouth in waves.

Their hands are still joined, fingers now interlocked in a solidified solidarity, and she knows tears are streaming from her eyes. She usually can’t stand others seeing her vulnerable, but at the moment, she doesn’t care.

They sit quietly for a long moment after he’s done, overwhelmed, and then Gerard breaks the silence:  
“You are not defined by your last name, nor by its bloody legacy. You are not defined by what your parents did, Julia.”

The tears start to fall harder then, but Julia manages to choke out, “Neither are you, Gerard.”

“Gerry.” His smile is shaky, but genuine.

“Neither are you, Gerry,” Julia says, softer this time.

And in that moment, Julia Montauk and Gerard Keay, the serial killer’s daughter and the former murder suspect, understand each other and are understood in kind.

For once, they are people, and not just headlines.


End file.
